schew@EI.ECN.PURDUE.EDU (H.C.E.) (02/06/90)
An interesting experiment perhaps? Try to make music that has no
relation to time at all. In other words no time signatures, etc... It would
have to be something just improvised, and recorded then learned without
applying any sort of timing to it... I think this would be very difficult
to do, but then again, who knows? Anyone know of some band who has tried it?
King Crimson would be my best guess, if anyone at all...
To whomever said that literature needed time as much as music...
I would tend to disagree. See some James Joyce. He writes without a
reference to time, combining the past, present and future moments into
one. There is a name for his unique style that I just cannot remember
right now (ARGH!). If you are interested in trying his writing, go for
Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man. He has a VERY difficult style,
especially in such works as Ulysses and Finnegan's Wake (for which he
made his own language of sorts. Very poetical and almost musical in
parts. WONDERFUL.) but it becomes great fun (for me anyway) trying to
puzzle out what he is saying... Cool stuff. Read FW out loud with a
friend. Hilarious.
Anyway, I suppose that James Joyce is rather unique, so maybe
literature does depend on time almost as much as music....
;-)
H.C.E.UUCJEFF@ECNCDC.BITNET (jeff beer) (02/06/90)
> > An interesting experiment perhaps? Try to make music that has no >relation to time at all. In other words no time signatures, etc... It would >have to be something just improvised, and recorded then learned without >applying any sort of timing to it... I think this would be very difficult >to do, but then again, who knows? Anyone know of some band who has tried it? >King Crimson would be my best guess, if anyone at all... > > H.C.E. KC? good joke. Just having no time signature would not make it time independent. But you can have an ambiguous relationship with meter, and perception of time can be mutable. I once was studying with Don Cherry, and he taught us some Ornette Coleman tunes. They have no time signatures, you only have a series of phrases. In practicle terms, this means there is no fixed relationship with the rhythm section. They can be turned around. ( and often are ) As for his rythm section, if you look at his work "Free Jazz", it is scored for a double quartet with 2 basses and 2 drums. Each take pains at establishing a different meter and tempo. Coltrane's Interstellar space is another example of an autonomous relationship between each player's time feel. Later musicians of jazz, such as with Anthony Braxton and Sam Rivers have different concept of time, in which they use space as a determination of how they perceive time. (Listen to "Four Winds" on "Conference of the Birds", under Dave Holland's name. They create doppler effects with the time) In the 20 century European tradition, there are also a variety of non-linear concepts of time. Stockhausen has many pieces where time is the most important concept. And Xennakis has written of the concept of "outside time" in his book "Formalized Music". I am only slightly familiar with these people, I cannot necessarily hear their concept in their works, but I have not studied them that much. I used to work with Alan Silva in a big band he called "Celestrial Communication Orchestra". He had a fascinating concept that was based in parallel harmony, and a time and melody concept based on the phrase. (i.e. the phrase had no reference to meter, even though other parts of the piece may have had metered information) To give you an example of how he conceived it, a friend of mine read a passage from some cosmological tract, saying "Not only can time move forwards and backwards, but it can move sideways interdimensionally". To that Alan got real excited and said, "Yah, that is just what I wanted you cats to play in the last rehearsal, but you couldn't hear it. I wanted to make time move sideways" Jeff Beer. "Hollywood finally is making films about us. Hollywood's Hollywood's finally put us on their budget" (Alan Silva after seeing Altered States)
SEG92@GENESEO.BITNET (the Talking Drum) (02/07/90)
H.C.E.--
I was reading that bit about music with no time at all and immediately
thought King Crimson 1.4 seconds before reading those very words. Most of
their music only SOUNDS like it has no time signature . . . however, there
is one song that I fear to be a hopeless case (i.e. I can't possibly imagine
any possible time signature for it . . . maybe 23/6 :) --
G R O O N.
It was on the flip side to Cat Food (1973, I belive) and is available on the
L.P. The Young Person's Guide to King Crimson. Check it out. It's weird.
But then again, it's Crimson.
--the Talking Drum
(Larks' Tongues in Aspic side 2 track 2)DCODESP@CLEMSON.BITNET (Dan Codespoti Minstrel) (02/08/90)
There is something called "Free Time" in music. It is no real time signature
...it's legit as a time sig tho. Percy Grainger has used it. All the notes
on the page are conducted. sort of like sub-dividing th entire peice of music
for each individual note. THe mark for free time is a circle w/ a dot in the
middle in the place where the time signature goes.....it's really interesting
to try to play it for the first time.....
Minstrel.
PS Off hand I don''t know of anyone but Grainger that has used it, but I *KNOW*
others have.